1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to mobile media playback devices. More particularly, the invention relates to the generation of playlists of media content to playback on mobile media playback devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional mobile media playback devices allow users to download and playback media, such as music, videos, pictures and images. Exemplary mobile media playback devices include mobile terminals, personal digital assistants, digital cameras, digital video recorders and combination devices. Typical mobile audio players, for example, generally have a relatively small memory capacity that allow for the storage and playback of a limited number of songs. Users store a music library containing songs on a PC or other computer device having a relatively large memory and download a portion of the songs in the music library to the mobile audio player.
The manual selection of songs to add to a playlist can be time consuming and tedious. Attempts have been made to automate the playlist selection process. One method includes selecting a random group of songs from the music library. This method can result in the playlist including a large number of songs that are not liked by the user.
Another prior art method includes generating a playlist that includes songs most liked by the user. This approach can lead to degenerative playlists. The playlists can become dominated by the same songs played over and over again. Some systems rely on the use of metadata to compare attributes of new songs to the attributes of songs that a user has indicated as enjoying. Without the required metadata, such systems do not work.
These drawbacks are not unique to mobile audio players and also apply to other mobile media playback devices.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for playlist selection systems and methods that automatically generate lists that include media pieces that a user likes while minimizing repetition and keeping aspects of surprise within the lists.